In the first week of the new year, 2,000 federal agents (ICE) were deployed on the streets of Minneapolis over so-called “welfare fraud” in the Somali community. This crackdown by the Trump administration had monstrous, unleashed violence written all over it from the start. The very tight-knit community in Minneapolis had organized ICE Watch efforts, Know Your Rights trainings, and distributed whistles with instructions in English and Spanish so people could alert one another if ICE was nearby.
Renee Nicole Good was a mother of three. She loved to sing and dance, and she wrote poetry. As a new resident, she was giving back to her community as a legal observer. If you have ever been to a protest or, in this case, the occupation of an entire city, you know how important legal observers are in documenting what is happening.
We have all seen the video at this point, so I won’t go into it, and I certainly will not argue with anyone about what we all saw with our own eyes. When she was terrorized and murdered, her wife and dog were in the car with her. Her wife sat on the sidewalk afterward with their dog, in shock, not knowing what to do. Renee’s mother had to go and identify her. Imagine, if you will, what that must have been like, going to identify your daughter after she was shot in the face. Imagine having to see her murder replayed over and over on your phone screen.
Her life was taken just a few blocks from where George Floyd’s life was taken from him. This was not the people of Minneapolis’s first “rough ride.” Hundreds of people arrived at the scene of Renee’s murder. An all-day standoff between the community, ICE, and local police ensued.
A doctor from the neighborhood was there and asked to help her, but ICE told him no. After 15 minutes, an ambulance arrived and was blocked by police vehicles. EMS responders had to reach her on foot. There was blood all over her seat and the airbag. She had stuffed animals hanging out of her glove compartment. If ICE did this to her in broad daylight, with all these people watching and recording, imagine what they do to Black and Brown people behind closed doors.
Like Darnella Frazier, who recorded George Floyd’s last breaths, Donna Ganger will forever be remembered as someone brave enough to bear witness and share the truth with the world.
Thousands of people occupied the streets of Minneapolis that night, and people all over the country marched, protested, and held vigils. In Detroit, people gathered with homemade signs in front of ICE headquarters, then took to the streets and marched through the city. People chanted, “NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE,” “NO RACIST ASS POLICE,” “MONEY FOR HEALTHCARE, NOT FOR RACIST DEPORTATIONS,” and my personal favorite, “FROM PALESTINE TO MEXICO, ALL THESE WALLS HAVE GOT TO GO!”
Renee’s name will live alongside Heather Heyer, Viola Liuzzo, and others who loved and cared for all people, women who showed up when they saw injustice unfold, women hell-bent on changing the world. They will always live in the hearts of loving people who witnessed unthinkable violence and were brave enough to stand up to it.
Valerie Jean is the Assistant Editor of Riverwise Magazine and a photojournalist in Detroit. She is a wife, mother, and grandma. She is also a water justice advocate and organizer with the People’s Water Board Coalition.
